Review of the Album Order of the Leech by the British Death Metal Band Napalm Death

British band Napalm Death reached a very high and solid point in their career with their 2000 studio album Enemy of the Music Business. Their 2002 album called Order of the Leech sees the band continue their lyrical themes about politics with the song called Continuing The War on Stupidity. The song is about how politicians start wars for their own benefit while caring not too much about their own citizens. The song makes a reference to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush and refers to them as this sort of three headed beast. The song says that the only way to end all wars is to end loathing but how can we end all loathing when human nature is filled with both love and hate? The band is brave enough to bring up the major flaws of these 3 leaders but Ronald Reagan was an especially BAD president (at least I thought that he was at the time of the writing of this review). When such leaders sell their policies to these people, these people acting like robots will buy into the rhetoric. This song was written in 2002 but the lyrics of it are especially applicable to what is happening today in 2020. Politics aside, the song is a great way to start this album.

One of the best riffing jobs in this album though is the next song called The Icing on the Hate. In life when someone is battling an addiction of any sort, life can be so challenging. But when that plug is finally pulled and a new chapter in life is started, that is a victory to be declared. At first we may feel that we have been given a doomed path in life and we may regret certain things but persistence is very important.

Narcoleptic is a song that is basically about what happens when someone suffers from narcolepsy. They are not able to function in the world properly because of this sleeping disorder. Too much sleep can be counterproductive as can too little sleep. But sometimes inaction can make us feel like we are undisturbed as the song says. Out of Sight Out of Mind is a song that describes what happened as Washington DC’s financial schemes were exposed as they were willing to sacrifice the lives of other people for financial gain. The song was written at a time before the second Iraq War took place and those of us that knew really what was going on behind the scenes know how that war turned out. Ground zero as the area of the World Trade Center was called after the 9/11 incident had been petrified as Americans were in a total state of shock, grief, and anger. Napalm Death the band brings up these issues for awareness to show how the political scene especially in the US and the UK is really like.

Lowest Common Denominator is a song that tells how politicians can brainwash their citizens into supporting useless and unnecessary foreign wars. Fear is much easier to sell than progress so that’s why fear is used so often as a marketing tool. The intensity of the vocals and the fast double bass drumming is still present for this band but Order of the Leech is just a step below the previous album as the strength of the first two songs are not enough to catapult the album over its predecessor. Farce and Fiction is a song about not believing every news source that we read because not every news source is credible. One example of this is Fox News which has become a part of the Republican Party’s machine of facts that they choose to report and broadcast but Fox News is biased to the right as everything the Democrats do is wrong. Blows to the Body is a song that addresses the concept that if life is so sacred, why it is it that quality of life just given lip service and not really put into practice? The world is sometimes a very rough place for young people especially in countries such as Syria or Somalia.

Final grade for the album Order of the Leech after this first review: 82 out of a 100 points